


The Scarlet Letter

by thebestoftimes



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Other, grantaire is a synesthete, his favorite letter is e, let's go synesthetes woohoo!, obviously, petit!taire, so much symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebestoftimes/pseuds/thebestoftimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Grantaire is upset, his synesthesia gives him one source of comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scarlet Letter

“But Miss, you don’t get it!” Grantaire protested, waving his chubby fingers at the alphabet poster in disgust. “I was fixing it!”

His teacher gave him a pitying look. “Grantaire, I understand that you wanted to make the picture better. But it belongs to me, and you painted all over it. You didn’t even ask permission. I think it’s time for you to apologize and I’ll help you clean it off."

“No!” He crossed his toddler arms and plopped down on the floor, shrill voice raising in frustration.

“If you aren’t going to be nice, then you can go to the time out corner.”

Exasperated, Grantaire stood himself up and gave his teacher the most scathing look any five-year-old has ever managed. As he refused to help his teacher ruin the poster, he stomped his way over to the time out corner, trying not to cry.

It wasn’t fair. He had been trying to _fix_ the poster. The colors of the letters were all wrong. Who in their right mind would make a blue A? It was not his fault that the teacher had been teaching them the alphabet all wrong. He was trying to help his class. Why had no one else done anything about the orange C, the green M?

The worst was when the teacher tried telling them stories about the letters-mean Mr. B and motherly Mrs. V. Evil Q, sweet L. Grantaire couldn’t take it.

Especially today, when they learned vowels. The teacher held up a purple letter E and told a story about how she was bullying A, I, O, and U, and how Y came to the rescue. He nearly screamed. E wasn’t a bully. How dare she call him a bully! The bright red letter E’s that danced in his mind were the friendliest of all the letters, their color brightest and personality kindest to him.

From his pocket, hiding it so his grumpy teacher didn’t see, Grantaire pulled drawing he’d made during art time. It was covered in scarlet E’s, small, big, backwards and forwards. So much red, he thought. It was beautiful. Right in the middle, he had drawn a tiny boy with messy black hair hugging the biggest, brightest E of all. They were both smiling.

The letter had been slow to like him, he remembered. When he first learned the alphabet, it had almost intimidated him with its strength, burning against his mind. But he like strong colors, and red was the strongest of them all. E was kind, and smart, and, well, everything he wanted to be. He loved writing words that began with it, in his clumsy penmanship. “Grantaire” was barely legible, but “elephant,” “excited,” “eggplant,” and “equality” were at least as good as the second graders’ writing. E warmed up to him. E became friendly, a refuge from the harsh reality he lived in. When his daddy yelled, he pulled a ruby crayon and a small tearing of paper from his pocket and draw them, immersing himself in the way the lines felt to create. E was nothing like the way his teacher said he was.

His vision blurred with tears and a drop of salt water fell onto the paper, blurring the green of the drawn boy’s shirt with the crimson of his friend. Grantaire didn’t mind. He thought it looked better this way. Like watercolor.

“It’s been ten minutes.” His teacher’s voice interrupted his peace. “You can go outside for the rest of recess now.”

Sighing, Grantaire folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket again. As he walked out the classroom door to the playground outside, he whispered to himself, “elephant, eggplant, everything, excellent, enchanted.” The painful lump faded from his throat.


End file.
